


Fault Lines

by Tabithian



Series: Fragments [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6567373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the time Tim has an answer for Jason, it's too late.</p><p>He never forgives himself for it, even when he sees Jason again years later in Blood Gulch of all places.</p><p>“Yeah, well, Jason says with that crooked smile of his. “Not like you were ever all that smart, you know?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fault Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Non-chronological scenes from that [Red vs Blue AU](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6344053) of mine from a while back, because reasons.
> 
> *hands*

After his implantation, Tim starts calling Damian Tiger when he gets on Tim's nerves. Puts that smarmy note into his voice Brucie pipes into his head all the damn time now, and has to bite back laughter that wants to burst free at the disgusted, horrified look he gets in return.

The others don't know what to make of Brucie the few times he manifest in front of them, but since Tim hasn't said anything, they let it go.

But then.

Bruce starts to let things slip, that bored drawl in Tim's head going sharp, almost angry when one of the others come from a mission injured. When Damian snaps and snarls whenever his position on the Leaderboard slips. For reasons Tim can't begin to guess at.

He lets things slip, and Tim doesn't know if he's even aware of it. How much leaks past whatever shields, barriers, he's put up in Tim's mind. 

Bits and pieces here and there that are maddening because they don't make any sense, no logic to them, but feel like they should. That don't feel like cold data and more like - 

“Drake? Are you...well?

Tim blinks. 

Looks up to see Damian a few feet away. Something uncertain in the line of his body.

Brucie is a cool presence at the back of Tim's mind. 

Watching, observing, the way he always does even when he's at his most infuriating. He's always _observing_.

“Sorry,” Tim says, gestures towards his head. “He's a little hard to get used to.”

Damian scowls, head tipping to the side.

“I knew you wouldn't be able to handle the strain.”

Brucie sits up in Tim's head, crowds closer until Tim can feel him looking out through his eyes.

“Strain?” Tim asks, like he doesn't know. “Are your AI - “

Damian snarls, taking a step away from Tim. 

“They are fine,” he says, snappish. “Don't project your inadequacies on me, Drake.”

It's been a long time since Damian's felt the need to throw that in Tim's face, the genetic manipulation, little tweaks done to Damian's DNA that would have been outlawed in years gone by to create a genetically superior human being. 

The fact that Damian's falling back on that _now_ , that he refuses to meet Tim's eyes - 

Tim lowers the hand he hadn't even realized he'd raised towards Damian. Says, quietly, while Brucie spins down in Tim's head like he's trying to hide, but doesn't log off, “You're bleeding, Damian.”

Blood dripping from his nose, falling on the chestplate of his armor.

Damian scoffs, touching gloved fingers to his face that come away wet.

“Cain hits harder with her AI.”

Tim nods, lets Damian have that lie, and feels Brucie's agitation before he logs off.

********

The AI are named after the Greek alphabet, but after a while those go out the window.

No one seems to remember if it was Dick being himself, or something the AI latched onto on their own, but none of the team questions it.

Cass never mentions hers, and if that's a result of the injuries she sustained on the Sarcophagus heist or just Cass being Cass, none of them ever get the chance to find out.

Tim gets.

God, he doesn't even know what he gets at first.

This vapid, babbling mess of an AI who calls Tim _Tiger_ chatters on about the most inconsequential matters. (Chatters on about inconsequential matters in the middle of a mission in between pointing out pockets of Insurrectionists waiting in ambush and vital intel Tim needs to stay alive.)

Somehow, though, the Director and the Counselor don't seem aware of this. Think he's every bit as sane and efficient as Cass' AI, or the twins Damian gets saddled with when he demands one of his own ahead of schedule.

The Counselor knows something, Tim can tell. It's in the way she watches him, voice sugar-sweet when she corners him after training to ask how the integration is coming along, and does he have headaches like Cass?

Tim smiles. 

Takes note of the way Brucie's mindless chatter trails off and the AI goes so, so still in Tim's head.

“It's like you said, Counselor,” Tim says, feeling a thread of amusement from Brucie because Tim's learning from the smarmy bastard, isn't he. “It's a bit of a learning curve.”

********

Brucie manifests in front of the others only once.

Long enough for Dick to look politely baffled, for Damian to look bored and disgusted, and for Cass to - /p>

She twitches, this odd little growl coming from her, even as she steps closer to Tim, aggression in her posture.

Steph and Barbara pull her back, sharing looks over the top of her head, and Tim - 

Tim notices the way Dick shifts, just so.

“Ah, my apologies,” Brucie says, something odd in his voice before his avatar blinks out and Tim feels a rush of cool in his head.

“Hey,” Dick says, moving to stand in front of Tim. “Are you okay?”

Tim looks at Dick, the bags under his eyes and lines on his face from the strain of trying to keep them from fracturing further after Jason's betrayal (death) that didn't use to be there, and doesn't ask, _are you?_

********

Damian enters the program later than Tim does, but aside from Dick, no one makes the mistake of calling him a rookie.

He's young, too young to have seen any kind of military action before joining the program, and that get's Jason's back up. Has him avoiding Damian as long as he can.

Memories, Tim knows, from the Insurrectionists group who thought they could create their own SPARTANs.

People who picked up kids like Jason and – in an abridged version of Jason's recounting, and Jason's own words, too tired for anger - fucked them over.

The Insurrectionists didn't have the funding, the resources, or even the scantest knowledge of what had been involved in the SPARTAN program, but they still tried. 

They still tried, and in the process turned the majority of the “candidates” into vegetables, in the best case scenario according to Jason, and in the worst – well. 

They got people like Jason who ended up burning their project down to the ground before the UNSC and ONI caught up to them.

“You ever wonder why we're here?” Jason asks, not long after Damian's name reaches the top of the Leaderboard. “I mean, fucking seriously, do you?”

Tim doesn't answer, just watches Jason pacing in agitation.

“Is there even any sense to their selection process?” Jason asks, and Tim shrugs.

He's thought about it a time or two in the past, always shutting that line of thought down fast because - 

“They pick Dick and Steph out of the Marines, pluck you out of the fire on one your helljumps, no one has any damn clue where Damian came from, and you know where they found me.”

Where Barbara found Jason, stagnating in a cell in ONI headquarters before she pulled strings, got them both out of there and into Project Freelancer thanks as a means to keep ONI off their backs. (As time goes on, Tim starts to wonder if it wouldn't have been better for them if they'd stayed there.)

This.

They're not supposed to talk about their lives before Freelancer, but somehow they all do, have. 

In the small hours when nightmares won't let them sleep. Crammed into some little abandoned building somewhere bleeding out because the last of the bio foam was used on a teammate in worse shape and they're not sure rescue's glint to get there in time. Medbay when one of them is injured – again – machines keeping one of them alive and there's no one else to hear.

In the beginning, before they got to know each other, learn their quirks, there was a little digging involved. One thing they have in common is this nice little bit of paranoia ingrained in them. Blame it on the war, blame it on the circumstances they all grew up in, but that doesn't change the fact it's there.

It's what's keeping them from forming the kinds of bonds Tim knows should be there between them. Had with his old squadmates before that last mission that went to hell thanks to bad intel, got most of them dead.

Dick tries, but they're all paranoid, nursing trauma and hurts from past experiences and Tim can feel them falling apart.

“I shouldn't even be here, you know?” Jason says, waving a hand meant to indicate the ship, the project, Tim doesn't know. “I should still be locked up with ONI shrinks and specialists trying to pick my brain apart, find out anything I know about the fuckers who did this to me.”

Jason snarls, and Tim closes his eyes as Jason's fist slams into the bulkhead. Reinforced metal alloys on a ship like this, and it gives even though Jason isn't wearing his armor because Jason's the next best thing to being a SPARTAN. 

Cass is the only one who can go up against him in an all-out sparring match is Cass, and that's because she's one of the remaining SPARTAN III's.

Tim thinks about Steph, about Barbara. Damian, who seems to be what's set Jason off this time.

Because Damian's young. Too young to have seen active military service before joining the program, and that's something about him that screams genetic manipulation. The kind that's prevalent across the colonies despite various laws and restrictions.

Something in the way he moves, fights.

Faster and stronger than any base-level human has a right to be.

“It's not the same,” Tim says, even though hes not even sure he fully believes it anymore. Not with the Leaderboard, the way the Director and Counselor seem to be pitting them against each other. “Jason, it's not the same.”

Jason snorts, shaking blood off his knuckles as he half-turns to look at Tim.

“Yeah? Then why don't you sound so sure of that?”

**Author's Note:**

> :D?


End file.
